There is a new ZEUGS Working Paper!
The ZEUGS Working Paper No. 13|2023 by Isabel Vehrkamp and Mareike Gebhardt has been published:
Vehrkamp, Isabel | Gebhardt, Mareike (2023): "So sieht es in der Hölle aus." Judith Butlers Konzept der Betrauerbarkeit als Analyseperspektive auf Diskurse der zivilen Seenotrettung.
The aim of the working paper is to explore the potential of Judith Butler's work on mourning theory for a critical analysis of humanitarian discourses of civil sea rescue in the Mediterranean. Humanitarian perspectives on migration to Europe have become increasingly important in public discourse in recent years. In her work on the politics of mourning, Butler outlines the conditions under which discourses on suffering and death can convey humanity and make precarious groups more vulnerable. Butler's concepts of grievability and ethical humanism make it clear that although certain narratives of civilian sea rescue politicise and lament the suffering described, a discursive victimisation of the refugees counteracts the creation of community-creating grief. Entanglements of the sea rescue discourse in Eurocentric notions of humanity can thus be made visible. The extent to which Butler's own theory of the human is able to adequately grasp or explain the postcolonial specificity of discourses on flight across the Mediterranean will be analysed in conclusion.
You can download the new ZEUGS Working Paper here.
#4GenderStudies 2023
This year's Gender Studies Day will once again take place on 18 December. Under #4GenderStudies, academics and institutions of gender studies in German-speaking countries will be drawing attention for the seventh time to the fact that gender studies and feminist criticism make an important contribution to current social challenges. ZEUGS emphasises this concern and the necessity of the discipline.
ZEUGS lecture series 2023
In the summer semester 2023, ZEUGS organises the lecture series Kritik und Intervention: Feministische Perspektiven auf Politik und Gesellschaft. It takes place on Thursdays from 2 to 4 p.m. (c.t.) in the Institute for Political Science (SCH 100.2).
In view of the current crises, the central problematization of gender difference and subject formation as a consequence of complex relations of forces and power seems hardly appropriate in sociopolitical discourse at present. However, this assessment is contradicted by the numerous fields of feminist interventions, ranging from gender-theoretical, eco-, trans-, and queer-feminist to post-colonial critiques, which thematize oppression and make visible the division of modern societies.
The lecture series examines the current state of feminist (social) critique of authoritarian, masculinist, and anti-feminist redefinitions from different perspectives and reflects on the interventionist potentials of feminist discourses and narratives. The lecture series is intended not least as a reflection on the extent to which these discourses contribute to the formation of a new common sense, what role they play in the reproduction or disarticulation of existing hegemonies and are suitable for counter-hegemonic interventions.
More information on the lecture dates and titles can be found in the flyer of the ZEUGS Lecture Series 2023.
NEW ISSUE: MACHTVERHÄLTNISSE. KRITISCHE PERSPEKTIVEN AUF GESCHLECHT UND GESELLSCHAFT
Now it is official: Henrike Bloemen, Christiane Bomert, Stephanie Dziuba-Kaiser and Mareike Gebhardt have published a Festschrift for Gabriele Wilde. After the ceremonial handover of the Festschrift in honor of Professor Dr. Gabriele Wilde took place on February 25, the anthology can now be purchased from Campus Verlag. It contains numerous contributions by ZEUGS members and by Gabriele Wilde's companions:
Thinking about power and domination in a society-centered way brings the category of gender into focus in its intersectional interweaving with other categories of inequality. The aim of the volume is therefore to examine the persistence and change of gender relations. From a decidedly gender-theoretical perspective, the contributions focus on discourse and knowledge formations, on entrenched institutions and contested democracies.
PARTICIPATION IN DVPW SECTION CONFERENCE "STRUGGLES FOR DIVERSITY"
Henrike Bloemen and Mareike Gebhardt will participate in this year's conference of the DVPW Section Panel Political Theory and History of Ideas from March 15, 2023 to March 17, 2023 at the Unversity of Duisburg Essen. The section conference is titled "Struggles for Diversity - Theory at the Boundary of Science and Politics" and is organized by Franziska Martinsen, Peter Niesen, Karsten Schubert, Frieder Vogelmann and Sabrina Zucca-Soest. From the perspective of feminist-intersectional, postcolonial, anti-racist, and queer theories, the conference aims to illuminate the particular potential of political theory to analyze the boundaries of science and politics that are contested by diversity theory.
Henrike Bloemen and Mareike Gebhardt will participate in the panel "Political Epistemology and Critical Philosophy of Science".
Mareike Gebhardt will give a talk entitled "Nomadic rather than monadic: critical methodologies and epistemological ruptures.",
Henrike Bloemen on "Common Sense. Critical Perspectives on a Complex of Meaning between Academy and Everyday Life."
The full conference program can be viewed here.